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Collaborative Tools in Electronic Educational Environments

Electronic educational environments supported by local area networks and the internet provide new channels for collaborative models of learning, training, teaching, and ultimately the construction of knowledge. Multimedia browsing and authoring, desktop video conferencing, and specialized animations, simulations, and games provide new media for learning. As the infrastructure for this environment unfolds, the question is how to use it in new effective ways to support not only current models of education but new methods of student-student, student-educator, and educator-educator collaboration in the learning process. New levels of interactivity, communication, and collaboration are now possible. However, the design and implementation of the interface to host these new activities is critical. The creation of this environment and the tools to support it involve at least three disciplines: (a) human/computer interaction for the design and evaluation of the interface, (b) cognitive psychology for theories of learning, knowledge comprehension, and collaborative thinking and problem solving, and (c) education for the models of pedagogy, curriculum development, and evaluation of learning effectiveness.

This project brings these three disciplines together to develop, use, and evaluate collaborative tools for the electronic classroom and beyond to used at the university level and back. A new model for spatially directed / spatially privileged collaboration will be used in conjunction with new techniques for visualizing and constructing shared collaborative spaces. The results of this project are expected to (a) guide the design of new collaborative tools, (b) promote the use of collaborative tools in the electronic classroom, (c) define the appropriate and optimal use of these tools given the course objectives, and (d) feed into a general theory of collaborative learning in electronic environments. The potential benefits of these designs for collaboration are substantial in K-12 and college education and will also find application in continuing education and in training for business and management.

Participants:

Kent L. Norman, Department of Psychology

Funding Agency: TBD

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